ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
… straying off the path of soapmaking, lighting three simple tea lights.
Well, not that simple, of course
. One is fueled with palm wax (fractionated-triglyceride-type palm stearin), one with “Wenzel Raps Wax” (hydrogenated canola), and the last one with my latest haul, OBW073 canola wax.
It doesn't sound like off-label use when I use canola wax to make candles, or does it? What if I have obtained it from a soapmaking supply store?
Anyway, each tea light holds 14 g of the respective wax. I did enough research on wicks that I know I know nothing about wicks, lol. I just used, in all three candles, the ones that came with the palm stearin tea lights. Melted up the waxes, cast, and added the wick. For the sake of comparison, I also melted up the palm wax (they originally came pressed, not cast).
All three are reasonably light coloured, the palm wax appears lighter than the canola-derived ones, but part of it can well be due to fluorescence of palm oil (it looks slightly cream-coloured but at the same time has that whiter-than-white shine typical for optical brigtheners).
I placed them in a triangle so that they would mutually heat up in an equal way. The first one to go out was the Raps Wax one (front), that got exhausted after 3h 10min. It also had a significantly larger and brighter flame, and some serious mushrooming at the end of its life span.
The other two were a head-to-head race, with the OBW073 fading after 3h 38min, and the palm wax after 3h 40 min.
All three burned fine and calm. The OBW073 was the first to be fully molten up, the palm wax needed longest, and it initially looked as if its melt pool had some troubles to reach the whole diameter of the tea light. Both canola wax candles burned with a higher/brighter flame, so (without hard numbers) it seems that I “got more light” out of the same amount of candle with canola wax than with palm wax.
I know that tea lights aren't the champion discipline in candle making, but FWIW, it's a fair start, and I do have some viable candle wax for the first time now.
The other off-off-off-off-label insight I gained was that the OBW seems a great choice for soapmaking (fuses quite quickly into a clear melt), i. e. less prone to false trace than the Raps Wax, that has given me some troubles every now and then.
Well, not that simple, of course
. One is fueled with palm wax (fractionated-triglyceride-type palm stearin), one with “Wenzel Raps Wax” (hydrogenated canola), and the last one with my latest haul, OBW073 canola wax.It doesn't sound like off-label use when I use canola wax to make candles, or does it? What if I have obtained it from a soapmaking supply store?
Anyway, each tea light holds 14 g of the respective wax. I did enough research on wicks that I know I know nothing about wicks, lol. I just used, in all three candles, the ones that came with the palm stearin tea lights. Melted up the waxes, cast, and added the wick. For the sake of comparison, I also melted up the palm wax (they originally came pressed, not cast).
All three are reasonably light coloured, the palm wax appears lighter than the canola-derived ones, but part of it can well be due to fluorescence of palm oil (it looks slightly cream-coloured but at the same time has that whiter-than-white shine typical for optical brigtheners).
I placed them in a triangle so that they would mutually heat up in an equal way. The first one to go out was the Raps Wax one (front), that got exhausted after 3h 10min. It also had a significantly larger and brighter flame, and some serious mushrooming at the end of its life span.
The other two were a head-to-head race, with the OBW073 fading after 3h 38min, and the palm wax after 3h 40 min.
All three burned fine and calm. The OBW073 was the first to be fully molten up, the palm wax needed longest, and it initially looked as if its melt pool had some troubles to reach the whole diameter of the tea light. Both canola wax candles burned with a higher/brighter flame, so (without hard numbers) it seems that I “got more light” out of the same amount of candle with canola wax than with palm wax.
I know that tea lights aren't the champion discipline in candle making, but FWIW, it's a fair start, and I do have some viable candle wax for the first time now.
The other off-off-off-off-label insight I gained was that the OBW seems a great choice for soapmaking (fuses quite quickly into a clear melt), i. e. less prone to false trace than the Raps Wax, that has given me some troubles every now and then.
